Death of a Salesman

When leaving Cosi today in the pouring rain (where I had just purchased my lunch), a girl representing a philanthropic organization approached me. What you should know about me before reading the rest of this story is that I am a huge sucker (I always give the dollar extra on my movie ticket to help kids with cancer, for example) and bad weather marketing makes my "sucker-ness" even worse (During the snow I emptied out my change into a water jug to help some GW kids go on alternate spring break simply because I felt bad that they were out in the cold and I remembered the horrible days of standing on Locust Walk at Penn in the rain/cold to get money/get people to sign up/market things for the sorority, Relay for Life, or my club (FEED, naturally)). Anyway, instead of running away from these girls like the rest of the downtown DC public, I listened to what the one who approached me had to say about CARE (I am calling out the organization for this mistake by name for no other purpose than to remind myself it is no longer somewhere I feel like donating to). True, I tried to walk away or hurry the conversation up a little bit (BULLET POINTS PEOPLE), and frequently felt like she doubted my intelligence (her definition of micro-financing cracked me up), but I was game to give her between $10 and $20 as the organization does do some legit good things, and well, according to her Obama AND Hillary Clinton have both spoken at their conference as keynote speakers (motivation to some...I am sure...though I personally would have left politics out of my "sell") and perhaps for me that legitimizes her as a money grubber for a cause (and not just a very intelligent hobo).

Yet, what should have been an easy...here, take this 20, or 10 dollar bill, turned into the most unnecessary anger-inducing transaction ever. First of all, they did not take cash (OK so I will admit that I was a little impressed by their little cell phone sized credit card machines because I had only seen them at the Apple store...but that's Apple and not some philanthropy on the street that should be spending their money elsewhere). I compromised here and said she could charge me the 10 or 20 dollars and perhaps that was really my only compromise before shit hit the fan. Secondly, they were only accepting a REOCCURRING MONTHLY donation. This statement prompted me to tell the girl I could give her 10 bucks now, or I would go home and think about (more like completely neglect ever doing) giving monthly. She then told me I could sign up now and then could just go online later and decrease my monthly donation or cancel it all together. While this would work for someone organized, like my mom who can keep our Disney Park Hopper passes for years until we feel like using one of the left-over days (insider trading secret: the days do not expire), this is a trap for me, and probably 95% of people. I ABSOLUTELY would forget about this monthly deduction (In fact, I have just done this with my Skype world calling from the summer in Geneva and JUST NOW realized it was still charging me) until it was a year or so later and I ended up giving them a lot more money than I intended (oh what a tangled web she tried to weave). I told her the deal again (one-time donation or I leave) and she still pushed me by responding, but what was 10 bucks a month to me, REALLY?? (damn hand-me down Burberry spring jacket distracted from my POKER FACE..mum mum mum mah). I responded that I worked at a nonprofit, was going to medical school next year, and had other philanthropies (FEED, Crohn's disease) that are more important/closer to my heart that get first dibs on my only donated money. She then started to tell me a story about an art student who gave money anyway (even though she was basically in debt. Idiot) and came back later to the seller on the street and said " it was the best choice she could have made" (With this story thoughts of political campaigns came to mind). I then said well, if you won't take my money as a one-time donation (which apparently gets doubled by some dude if they get it from people on the street), I am leaving and you get nothing.....and so I DID (insert the "oh-no-you didn't" three snaps in the Z formation hand gesture with accompanying facial expression).

The moral of the story here folks is that beggars can't be choosers. In the words of the Steve Miller Band, she should have just Gone on, Took the Money and Run.